Sports Betting Glossary
Every term you'll see on BettingLadies, explained the way you'd hear it at the bar
A–Z
- Favourite
- Pretty self explanatory: the team or player most people think will win. When you look at the Moneyline odds with a - in front (like, say -150), that's the favorite.
- Underdog
- Opposite of favourite… When there is a plus in front of the moneyline the oddsmakers think that the team or person will lose.
- Spread (point spread)
- Spreads are not as tricky as they seem. The simplest explanation is that it's like a handicap, so if the favorite has a spread of -3.5 they need to win by 4 or more. The opposite is true for the underdog. Again you'll see the plus sign in front of those odds (so, if the underdog has a +3.5 spread that team can lose by 3 and you'd still win if you bet on them).
- Total (over/under)
- It's called totals because you add up the numbers and try to guess if the game will end with more (over) or less (under) that amount. Pretty simple.
- Moneyline
- With the moneyline you bet on the side that will win. Again, + means favourite and - means underdog.
- American odds
- In Europe they often read odds differently but we can ignore that lol. As long as you know that we have odds that start with a - and + (as we pointed out above).
- Opener / opening line
- When the sportsbook first give out the odds that's the "opening line". As you will see on our odds pages, that line moves up and down depending on whether the chances of one team or player to win/lose changes.
- Line movement
- How much the line has changed based on things like injuries or how many bets are made for one side.
- Closing line
- The lines stop moving until the kick off and when they stop they are closed, hence a "closing line".
- Implied probability
- The moneyline odds can be converted into percentage probability. For example +200 is around a 33% chance of winning. Use a betting calculator to get that number.
- Vig (vigorish / juice)
- The vig is how the sportsbook make money! They basically take a cut and it comes out of the odds. This is why, when you convert the odds into implied probability and add up both sides of the odds you get more than 100%.
- Futures
- The bets that are for things that will happen in a few months. Like betting on the Super Bowl winner, stuff like that.
- Parlay
- Parlay is when you add a bunch of bets together and they all need to hit for you to win. We love parlays.
- Push
- When no side of the bets wins. This is also why spreads are half points so that this can't happen.
- Cover
- When a team or player did better than the spread had indicated. Right, so if a -6 spread team gets 7 they "covered the spread".
- Handle
- How much money is placed on a market.
- Sharp / square
- Sharps make a living betting. Squares just bet for fun.
- Consensus
- Consensus means: what everyone is betting on (pretty much). We follow these so that you can see whether they follow what the bookmakers think OR they know something that will help beat the books…